I am having some thoughts about tires of my Caliber. I'm a low-mileage driver since home and work is only 15 minutes away thus the wear is minimal and the threads are still good.

But I'm begining to think there are signs the tires need attention ..

1. Sometimes, the car vibrates when I gradually step on the gas especially when the road is wet.
2. The stopping distance is a bit longer than usual
3. The tires are the original ones, which by measure is around 7 years old now. The make and model is Firestone Affinity Touring T4.
4. Presently, my total mileage is around 79K+.

I asked some people about this but they say the tires should be fine since it has good threads. But my insticts tells me otherwise.

The question:
1. Are my instincts correct?
2. If so, I'm planning to buy new-ones by early next year. What's your experience/advice/recomendation with other tires for North American driving?
3. Does it have to be a Touring tire?
3. I know there are "all-season" tires but someone mentioned an "all-season winter" tires. Is that a fact? If so, whats the make and model are these?

Five years is usually the max for times before the sidewall rot, etc. starts to be factor, no matter what the mileage is on a tire. I just purchased my first new set since I purchased my '08. I bought Generals. They are trying to get into the high performance tire competition and their ATX Max (or whatever it is exactly) is the only performance tire (19"O with a 40,000 mile warrenty. They are also usable in "light snow" and are an amazingly advanced tire. It's worth the research on what they do...deep treads to funnel water away, locking prongs that lock up when cornering to make them good handlers, and they're designed so the tires won't synchronize noise and start drumming. Anyway, they are also the least expensive 19' tires on the high performance market. I paid $164 each for them. I really like these things. They are surprisingly light weight as well. Perhaps this will help.

General G Max AS 03. There was a brand new set on the used '08 CSRT4 I just bought. Believe me, they're good for more than just a little, light snow! Even with that big air dam out front, they have pulled me through 6-8" of snow, and some even deeper plow rows at the end of my driveway.

As to high performance. . . who knows? We've had too much snow in west Michigan to be able to test that out yet.